


We Need Better Passwords

by redspottywellies



Series: Famous Last Words [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Conspiracies, Dystopia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 04:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5484020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redspottywellies/pseuds/redspottywellies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty years after the purge ends, Uther is running the country from behind the scenes, Morgana seems to be losing the plot, Gaius knows all, and  Arthur needs to get over himself. Merlin just wants people to stop throwing food at him, and maybe come out of all this with his life.  </p><p>Or,</p><p>In Which Everyone Is Hiding Something and Nobody Knows What's Happening</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**  
**

**October 2008**

The sky was dark over London. The moon was making a half-hearted attempt to break through the clouds, and a chilly autumn breeze sent fallen leaves skittering along the pavements. Under the artificial glow of the streetlights, several things were happening at once.

 

Arthur was hunched over at his kitchen table, squinting his way through a stack of spreadsheets in the dingy half-light of his flat, trying to ignore the growing ache in his neck. The company’s yearly budget was troubling him; for the life of him, he couldn’t work out where so much money was going. So far, every attempt to follow a line of inquiry had left him at a dead end or caught up in a web of red tape. Uther had dismissed his concerns of embezzlement, but it wouldn’t be the first time his father had ignored something while it disappeared before his eyes.

 

Merlin was running. The sole of his left shoe flapped annoyingly where it had come away, and he skidded on a dropped crisp packet as he rounded another corner. The sirens following him were growing louder, piercing the night air but doing nothing to drown out the sound of his own blood roaring in his ears. At least, he mused as he vaulted over a pile of bin bags, he’d thought to cast a distortion charm on himself before he’d accidentally triggered that sensor outside the R&D department.

Headlights lit up the street as one of the mercenaries’ vans rounded the corner after him. Merlin cursed and picked up the pace.

 

Morgana was staring into a mug of lukewarm tea. Morgause had quietly set it on the table in front of her almost twenty minutes ago, but it was still untouched. She’d tried to stop herself obsessing, stop her magic bleeding over, but the past few months had made it harder and harder to ignore the faces that followed her, watching her from puddles and mirrors and toilet bowls, all manner of reflective surfaces. Now, Uther stared out at her from the depths of the murky liquid. He looked sad.

Morgana picked up the mug and went through to the kitchen, where she carefully poured the tea down the drain. Morgause frowned from behind her computer, but said nothing.

 

Uther’s head of security stood rigid on the other side of the desk, babbling about a possible breach of the industrial park’s perimeter. Every so often the man – what was his name, Jackson? Johnson? – took off his glasses and started cleaning them with his tie before cramming them back onto his face. His forehead was shining with sweat and he looked rather frantic. Uther ignored him in favour of the photo on his desk. Igraine smiled sadly at him from behind the frame’s carefully polished glass. He could feel Morgana’s baleful stare on the back of his neck. They both knew what he’d done. 

 

In a dark attic flat, Sefa stood at the window and stared up at the night sky, on the lookout for an incoming message. She could practically feel the tension radiating off the others in the room, all in varying states of anxiety. Edwin was doing push-ups on the floor, muttering under his breath in what sounded like Russian. Gilli was at the table, flicking through one of his spell books with glazed eyes, obviously not taking in a word of it. Above them, they could hear Aithusa prowling around on the roof – her restlessness was getting worrying, even with her assurance that she’d stay in her human form and under the protection of Iseldir’s wards.

Waiting to carry out a full-scale infiltration, Sefa thought to herself as she squinted into the darkness, was not good for a person’s nerves.


	2. A Guinness to Cure All Ills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rather a lot of swearing in this chapter. Apparently Merlin gets colourful when he's annoyed. Got to give him credit for creativity, at least.

**October 2008**

Merlin crouched on the floor of his hideout, humming to himself in an attempt to fill the eerie silence caused by the muting spells around the doors and windows. The mage light hovering beside him flickered slightly as he concentrated on what he was doing. Merlin took no notice. He frowned and ran a finger down the list of ingredients, making sure he’d included everything before he added the final components. He brought the light down slightly so he could scan through the rack of vials next to his left foot, causing the shadows cast on the walls by his unpacked bags and sparse furniture to grow and shift like impatient spirits. Merlin found the phial he was looking for and picked it up, uncorking it with a muttered word.

Carefully, he poured one drop of liquid into the bowl in front of him and waited for the contents to stop fizzing. He added one of the hairs Gaius had given him, ensuring that only his uncle would receive the message. When the steam cleared he looked down into the greenish liquid and spoke.

“Message begins – password: griffin shit. It’s me. Cased the R&D department – magical signatures indicate the targets are alive but unreachable. Plan A is not advisable. Security’s doubled since Morgause’s attempted attack last year. Pendragon Senior is more paranoid than ever. Repeat, Plan A is not advisable. Message ends.”

It wasn’t long before his reply came, Gaius’ crotchety voice echoing out of the bowl, sounding slightly distorted, as if he were speaking from behind a screen, or over a shaky phone connection.

_“Message begins - password: Unicorn piss. Enact Plan B, effective immediately. Be at safe house 2 at 07:00 tomorrow to collect your necessary documents. Work starts at 08:30. Message ends.”_

Merlin stared at the bowl for a long time after Gaius’ message finished. Finally, he managed to scrape his thoughts together enough to regain control over the muscles in his face.

“Who the fuck,” he said to himself, “even comes up with those passwords?”

********

“Plan B,” Iseldir sighed, rubbing his hands over his face when Gaius had finished filling him in on the Emrys boy’s message and the sudden change of plan. “That’s a rash decision, Gaius. You’re sure he can handle it?”

“I’m sure,” Gaius said quietly, not looking up from the note he was enchanting to be unreadable to anyone other than the recipient.

“This could be the thing to put you back under the microscope,” Iseldir warned. “Uther only allows you so much leeway because he’s known you for so long. Bringing a new face into the mix, especially working so closely with you-”

“Is worth the risk,” Gaius interrupted. “We may have started this movement, Iseldir, but we can only achieve so much where we are now. We’re old men. I’ve always known I won’t be the one to bring about Uther’s downfall. That responsibility lies elsewhere.”

“With the Emrys boy?”

“Perhaps.”

“And you think putting him behind enemy lines this soon will solve anything? Gaius, he’s a smart lad, but he’s so young-”

“He’s twenty,” Gaius said mildly. “Only four years younger than Pendragon’s son. And you know as well as I do what the prophecies say about the two of them.” Iseldir snorted, and Gaius raised an eyebrow. “What’s this, old friend? Losing faith in your own people’s predictions? Thinking of joining Morgause’s side?”

“You know I would never,” Iseldir growled. “But since last year’s incident, surely any talk of prophecy is just inflammatory? We can’t afford to waste any more time fighting the other half of the resistance when we’ve all got a common enemy to focus on. Too many druids are already threatening to jump ship. We can’t risk a schism, Gaius. There’s too much at stake.”

“The truce is holding for now, and will continue to as long as Mordred stays on task,” Gaius assured him. “And focusing on the common enemy is exactly what I intend to do. We’ve been stationary for too long, while our own people are chained up in the Camelot Technologies labs. Everyone’s agreed – on our side at least – that getting Kilgarrah and Freya out is top priority. I shudder to think what Uther’s learned from them already. Gods know what kind of weapons he could build just by studying their anatomy – and I’ve heard rumours that’s he’s looking into genetic modification. We need to act before he goes any further. Merlin is our only shot at getting them out.”

Iseldir scowled, searching for one last argument. “Alice won’t be pleased,” he said at last with a triumphant look. “She’ll hear one word about you putting yourself in danger like this, not to mention the lad, and hit the roof.”

Gaius was unimpressed. “Alice is with Gwen, they’re forging Merlin’s documents as we speak,” he said. “Although I’ll be happy to tell her you tried to put words in her mouth.”

Iseldir opened his mouth, and quickly shut it again. Better to quit while he had a head.

********

The attic flat was quiet. Edwin was humming to himself in the kitchen as he chopped vegetables for dinner. In the main room, the News at Ten was playing softly in the background. Absolutely no one was paying it any attention.

“ _Our top story tonight, further threats of a terrorist attack from the magical extremist group known as ‘The Druids’ have been intercepted by government officials,_ ” the anchor was saying from behind her desk. _“Prime Minister Richard Bayard was unavailable for comment, but an official statement from Downing Street assures that the government is easily equipped to deal with the threat, and urges the public not to panic…”_

“We should have heard from someone by now,” Gilli said, checking the time on his phone for the third time in a space of a minute as he paced up and down the length of the living room.

“I’m sure it’ll be any moment now,” Sefa said reassuringly, though she was tapping her fingers nervously on the windowsill as she scanned the dark sky outside for any sign of a message.

“ _In other news, Uther Pendragon, founder and president of Camelot Technologies has once again spoken out against the corrupting influence of magic in a speech directed at the youth of Great Britain,_ ” the anchor continued. “ _Mr Pendragon voiced his concerns about the growing trend of casual magic use in urban areas of northern England and Wales, where gang activity is once again on a steady incline. Graham Mitchell brings you this report…_ ”

Gilli made an irritated noise and paused in his pacing to switch off the TV. Sefa shot him a concerned look.

“It’s alright, Gil,” she said as he went back to his marching. “It’s only a couple of hours late. They probably just got held up-”

Right on cue, a pigeon smacked into the glass, making her jump.

“Every time,” she muttered, opening the window and grabbing hold of the bird. She found the little scroll tied around its leg and eased it off carefully.

“It’s from Gaius,” Sefa told the room at large, recognising the light green paper he always used. She let the pigeon fly away before she closed the window quickly, trying not to let too much cold air into the already chilly flat, and opened the note.

“What’s he said?” Gilli asked, still pacing.

“Give her a minute to read it,” Aithusa told him from where she was slumped on the sofa with a hand over her eyes. “Sit the fuck down, Gilli, you’re giving me a headache.”

Gilli glared at her, but stopped himself with some difficulty and flopped down in the armchair opposite, where he immediately started jiggling his leg. Aithusa let out a low growl, although it was far less impressive than she would have liked, coming from a human throat.

“Be nice, Aithusa,” Edwin reprimanded, coming through from the kitchen and pointing a reproachful tin of kidney beans at her. “We all know you’re frustrated, being cooped up-”

“Cooped up doesn’t even being to cover it, being stuck in this form-”

“And we know you’re worried about Freya-”

“Please stop trying to be sympathetic, it doesn’t suit you-”

“But we’ve got to keep our heads,” Edwin ploughed on as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “Arguing won’t help anybody. Sefa agrees with me, don’t you Sefa?”

“Leave me out of this,” Sefa murmured absently as she scanned Gaius’ note. The others fell into a tense silence and watched her as she read over it a second, then a third time. She let out a long breath, mumbled something about weird fucking passwords, and looked up. “Plan A’s a no-go. Plan B’s in motion,” she said. “We’re to move into position first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Thank fuck for that,” Aithusa said, scrubbing her hands over her face. “I was thirty seconds away from tearing Gil’s head off.”

Gilli let out a noise that was only partially a laugh, and mostly genuine fear. “Does that mean you’ll eat with us for once before we head for battle stations, instead of stealing all my cereal when you get hungry later on?” he asked.

“Depends on what we’re having,” Aithusa replied, looking over at Edwin.

“Chilli sans carne, we’re out of meat,” Edwin said over his shoulder as he disappeared back into the kitchen. “Got some broccoli though.”

“That’s not a viable replacement!” Sefa called after him. Edwin ignored her. She sighed. “Why do we let him cook again?”

“Because he’s the only one who hasn’t set anything on fire yet.”

There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of Edwin clanking around in the kitchen.

“This means you’re going back undercover then?” Gilli asked Sefa after a while, sounding quiet and sad.

“I’ll be alright,” Sefa assured him. “I’ll be in touch plenty. Besides, you’ll barely notice I’m gone, you’ll all be run off your feet helping Merlin with recon, even if you’re having to stay on the outside for this one. I’m just happy Gwen and Gaius are already in there, they’ll keep him out of the shit.”

“But they’ve worked there for ages, they’re not even on Uther’s radar anymore, ‘specially not Gaius. Things are different now - I’ll be surprised if Merlin can even get in, to be honest,” Gilli mumbled. “He’ll have to hope whoever’s manning the gate tomorrow is really thick or something. Or that they’re too lazy to be arsed with all those extra measures Uther put in place after the incident last year.”

“God, that was a farce,” Aithusa sighed, rubbing her eyes. “Morgause is fucking mental. Trying to blow up the bloody labs with our people still inside… her side have become exactly what Uther wanted them to. Now all the lies he’s planting in the press and parliament might as well be true.”

“Well look at you, getting all political,” Edwin grinned, appearing in the doorway once again. “And here I thought you were just here to complain and occasionally breathe fire on anything that might threaten Freya.”

Aithusa stilled, and turned to face him with a calm smile. “Don’t question my motives,” she said kindly. “You saw what I did to the bounty hunter that took her.”

Edwin grimaced as the memories of blackened bones and burnt flesh sprang up from where he’d shoved them in a locked drawer at the back of his mind. “You just had to remind me, didn’t you?” he muttered, ducking back into the kitchen. “Bloody dragons…”

********

The security guard looked from Merlin’s papers to Merlin and back again, unimpressed. Merlin shifted uncomfortably, in spite of the knowledge that Gwen and Alice’s forging skills were flawless as ever, and adjusted the strap of his messenger bag, shivering in the cold morning air. He looked past the guard into the booth she occupied at the entrance of Camelot Technologies Industrial Park, working the barrier to let people in and out. She had a space-heater and a kettle in there, he noticed with envy. He shivered again.

“Look,” he said. “I know I don’t have an employee ID. It’s my first day, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Just call Dr Granby, I’m his intern, he’ll vouch for me, I promise, um-” he glanced at her name tag – “Vivian.”

He gave her his most charming smile, ignoring the voice at the back of his mind that sounded suspiciously like Gwaine telling him he looked like he was trying to squeeze an egg out of his arse.

The guard – Vivian - heaved a great sigh as if what he’d asked of her was the biggest inconvenience she’d ever faced, and picked up the phone. She appeared to be going as slow as she possibly could as she dragged a glossy red nail down the list next to the phone, looking for the number for Gaius’ extension. When she found it she took great care to dial one digit at a time, looking to the list and back with the sped of an arthritic snail. Merlin shoved his hands in his pockets and waited. Finally, she looked up and gave him a sardonic smile.

“S’ ringing,” she said. Merlin smiled patiently. Vivian tucked the phone between her ear and her shoulder and got out a bottle of red nail varnish.

“Yeah, Gaius?” she said at last, shaking the bottle and unscrewing the cap. “Someone here to see you. New intern, he says.” There was a pause where Merlin could hear Gaius’ voice on the other end, tinny and faint. “I dunno,” she said, starting to apply a new coat of red to her nails. “Gawky looking. Needs a comb, a shave and a new shirt. His name?”

She paused and looked at Merlin expectantly.

“Martin,” Merlin supplied, the alias rolling off his tongue as easily as if it were his real name. “Martin Rhys.”

Vivian relayed the information to Gaius. There was a pause while she listened to the reply, before she slammed the phone down with a huff. “Go on in,” she said grudgingly, pressing the button that raised the barrier and shoving his papers back at him. “D block is engineering, that one over there, see? Gaius is in building seven, floor five, just follow the signs.”

“Thanks,” Merlin nodded. She ignored him and went back to painting her nails. With a sigh, Merlin stuffed the papers back into his bag and headed into the park.

By the time Merlin reached the fifth floor of building seven, he was rather severely winded. He’d managed to navigate his way through the maze of square grey structures towards the engineering department without getting too lost, but the stairs just took the biscuit. He checked his watch when he reached the door that had Gaius’ name on the plaque outside and groaned. He was ten minutes late. Fucking Vivian.

He knocked on the door.

“Come in!” called Gaius from inside, sounding distracted. There was a loud crash and a few bangs.

Merlin hesitantly poked his head around the door. He managed to register a large but crowded room with white-painted walls, overflowing with books and papers and what looked like most of a dismantled car, before something sharp and metallic-looking came whizzing at his face – he yelped and ducked. The sharp thing embedded itself in the doorframe where his head had been an instant before. It was quivering slightly with the force of the impact. Merlin stared at it, and then over at Gaius, who had the grace to cringe slightly.

“Sorry,” he said, before going back to wrestling with what must have been a functioning piece of machinery at some point but now resembled a pile of scrap metal and screws with several pennies and a pencil stuck in the side. “You’ll be the new intern then? You’re late.” he added.

“Um. Yeah. Sorry,” Merlin replied, almost wondering why Gaius was pretending not to know him but quickly catching himself when he noticed the security camera on the ceiling out of the corner of his eye. “Martin Rhys. Sir.”

“Call me Gaius, boy, everybody does,” Gaius replied absently. He removed one of the pennies, turned it over and put it back in. A light on the top of the heap blinked on, and he smiled in satisfaction. Merlin thought it best not to ask.

“Right,” Gaius said, turning around and looking at him. “Come through, we’ll get you processed.”

With that, he turned and disappeared through a door at the side of the room, sending a pile of important-looking files spilling onto the floor as he passed by. Merlin hesitated, and followed.

The next room was smaller but considerably less crowded than the first. There was a desk in the corner with a phone and lamp and the usual office supplies. A table to the side bore a kettle, teapot, caddy and a few mugs. A mini-fridge was tucked underneath, making a gentle whirring noise. The shelves lining the walls were packed with books, the titles indicating a strange mix of subjects, from the ethics of genetic modification to a biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Gaius was standing behind the desk, shuffling through a pile of documents. He didn’t speak until the door clicked shut.

“We can talk freely in here, there’s no cameras or microphones and I’ve modified the door,” he said when it had. “Not that anyone would notice if I hadn’t – this lab is probably one of the only ones in the building that isn’t monitored around the clock. I’m fairly certain Uther only keeps me around out of nostalgia. Hardly anyone comes here anymore, they all go to George downstairs with his new-fangled equipment and his second PhD.” He looked up suddenly, his gaze harsh and direct. “You didn’t meet anyone else on the way in other than Vivian?”

“Didn’t talk to anyone else, if that’s what you mean,” Merlin said, managing not to start too badly at Gaius’ sudden change in tone. “Passed a couple of suits and a lot of white coats, but they all ignored me.”

Gaius nodded as if this was what he was expecting, and returned his attention to the documents.

“So,” he said. “You’ve got a contract for a year’s internship. If people ask, just tell them you’re working for me, a general dogsbody, don’t go into specifics, got that? Here’s your ID,” he added, handing over a lanyard bearing Merlin’s fake name and details. “Keep that on you at all times, if you’re caught wondering the halls without it, you’ll be out on your arse and the whole mission is bust.”

“Got it,” Merlin nodded, taking the lanyard and slinging it around his neck. “Anything else?”

“Yes. Don’t draw attention to yourself,” Gaius said, pointing a stern finger. “No insulting any brilliant scientists, no tripping over or spilling coffee or putting your foot in your mouth in front of the brass, none of that, clear? Oh, don’t give me that look, you know as well as I do you’re clumsier than a drunken giraffe on stilts.”

“Drunk? And on stilts? You had to have both in there, did you?” Merlin asked, genuinely offended.

Gaius sighed. “Look, your mission here is to blend in,” he said. “Become part of the furniture. Stay in the shadows, listen in on conversations, be the eyes and ears I can’t be anymore. Edwin, Gilli and Aithusa are all on standby – if anything happens, if you find a threat brewing, if your cover’s blown, anything, that’s what they’re there for, either as backup or to get you the hell out. Gwen’s also prepared to help, of course, but her position here is too vital for her to be exposed, and she can’t disappear like you four can, so try not to involve her too much. You have one year to find a way to break Kilgarrah and Freya out of those labs.”

Merlin grimaced before nodding. “Understood, sir.”

“And Merlin? I think you’ll find a drunken giraffe on stilts is exactly what we need for this mission. There’s no way you can be accused of pulling a Junius Brutus and pretending to be stupid to infiltrate the king’s court when it’s so clear that you’re an actual idiot.”

“I’ll try and take that as a compliment, sir. For my self-esteem.”

“Good lad. Now, come give me a hand with this equipment.”

********

Arthur was having a bad day. He’d woken up to an email from his father summoning him to his office as soon as he came into work, which never boded well. His favourite coffee shop had been closed down – something about Thomas, the owner, going on an extended holiday, according to the man who’d been boarding up the windows when Arthur had arrived there earlier that morning.

That meant he’d had to use the machine in the breakroom, which, when it even elected to work, made truly terrible coffee; and, because apparently the universe hated Arthur Pendragon, the machine had decided to have a day off from doing its job, which led to now, with Arthur late for Uther’s meeting, the front of his suit sopping wet, and swearing under his breath as the coffeemaker continued to expel sporadic bursts of boiling water and issue frankly alarming amounts of steam.

Frantically dabbing at his shirt with a couple of flimsy paper napkins from the box on the counter, he managed to extract his phone from his pocket and dial the number for maintenance, which some enterprising soul had pinned up on the notice board.

“Yello?” Someone answered after a few too many rings. “You’ve reached maintenance.”

“Yes, this is Arthur Pendragon,” Arthur grit out, trying to keep his temper under control. “I’m calling from the third floor breakroom-”

“Coffee machine is it, sir?” the voice interrupted, apparently recognising the clunking noises in the background. “Third time this week, that is. I’ll send someone up right away.”

“See that you do, I’m late for a meeting,” Arthur commanded.

“Yessir,” the person on the other end said, before hanging up without another word.

Arthur huffed indignantly, put his phone away and carried on trying to wring out his tie. He heard someone come into the room behind him.

“Finally! Tell your supervisor I’ll be sending someone down to maintenance to review your department’s efficiency,” he said, turning around to find someone standing in the doorway, mostly hidden behind the large, rather worrying-looking piece of machinery they were carrying. “Why on earth do you need that to fix the coffee machine?”

“Oh, no, sorry,” the person replied, their dark head peering over the top of the precariously balanced equipment, somehow managing to extract an employee ID from somewhere one-handed without dropping anything and waving it in Arthur’s general direction. “I’m from engineering, not maintenance. New intern. Just running an errand for Dr Granby. He wants this set up in here - something to do with accessibility to radio-waves, I think. He tends to mumble when he’s working. Um.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow as the stranger trailed off awkwardly. There was a long pause, broken only by the coffee machine, which was now issuing a steady stream of milk onto the carpet and making noises like a cat trapped in a tumble dryer.

“I’ll just… um. Get to it, then,” the person said, edging forwards towards the window.

Arthur sighed and waved him into the room, turning his attention back to the machine, cursing when he realised he now had milk all over his shoes.

It was another two minutes before the maintenance guy finally got there, and when he did, Arthur was well and truly pissed. The front of his jacket was covered in little white specks of napkin where he’d been trying to dab the worst of the water away, and Gaius’ new assistant was humming annoyingly as he clanked away with whatever machinery he was setting up at the edge of the room.

“What sort of time do you call this?” he demanded when the man came sauntering in at last, hefting a toolbox and a roll of blue paper towels.

“Sorry sir, got waylaid, someone’s photocopier was acting up while I was coming up through reception and there was no one else around to fix it,” the man said.

Arthur huffed, squinting at the name on the man’s lanyard.

“Look, Morris,” he growled. “I don’t particularly care about some dim secretary’s failure to operate standard office equipment. You’ve now made me late for a meeting with the president of this company, who I’m sure you’re aware holds your entire future in his hands, my clothes are ruined and I still haven’t had any damn coffee! So shut your trap and get to it before I have you fired!”

“Yes sir. Sorry sir,” Morris muttered, chastised.

There was a derisive snort from over by the window. Arthur ignored it.

Morris plonked his toolbox down on the counter next to the coffeemaker and snapped it open, rifling through it with an unnecessary amount of clanging and rattling. Arthur folded his arms and waited. Several long minutes passed in which Morris succeeded in getting the noise to stop and halting the flow of milk, apparently finding it necessary to remove the panel on top in the process.

“Here, hold this would you sir?” he said absently, wrenching a metal cylinder full of coffee granules from inside the machine and pushing it into Arthur’s hands without looking up.

Arthur grappled with the cylinder and let out an incredulous noise. “Why on earth are you dismantling the thing?” he demanded. “I just needed you to make it stop acting up so I could have some coffee!”

“Oh,” Morris said, looking up and blinking owlishly. “Sorry sir, should have said. This thing’s been on its last legs for ages, it’ll take hours to fix. Won’t be making any more coffee today, I should think.”

“Why the hell didn’t you just tell me that in the first place?” Arthur asked, a little more loudly than intended. “And why hasn’t there been another one ordered if this one’s broken?”

Morris shrugged. “Budget cuts, I suppose, sir,” he said. “A lot of the non-essential equipment’s on the blink around here these days, doesn’t look like anyone’s paying to replace it, so me and Ollie are run off our feet, see, trying to keep it all running.”

“Well it’s no wonder this place is falling to ruin, if you’re what goes for high standards down in maintenance!” Arthur fumed, waving the coffee canister for emphasis. “Tell me, Morris, are you an actual idiot or just-”

“Alright mate, that’s enough,” said a voice from behind.

Arthur whipped around to see Gaius’ intern still standing by the window, fully visible now that whatever he’d been carrying was set up on the carpet under the ledge. He was tall and gangly, a few years younger than Arthur, dressed in jeans and a plaid button-down over a t-shirt, a pair of battered trainers on his feet. He had black hair that put Arthur in mind of the phrase “dragged through a hedge backwards”, and had a small, friendly smile on his face. Arthur quickly came to the conclusion that he was weak in the head, or else shockingly bad at sensing the tone of a room, and decided to act accordingly.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” he asked brusquely.

“I’m Martin,” the idiot said brightly, offering his hand.

Arthur didn’t take it, preferring to ignore it until the idiot withdrew it. “So I don’t know you,” he summarized.

“No, I suppose you don’t.”

“And yet you called me ‘mate’?”

“Right, that was my mistake.” The smile was gone from the idiot’s face now, and he was looking at Arthur with a surprisingly chilling glare. “I’d never have a friend who could be such an ass.”

Arthur was peripherally aware of Morris flapping frantically in the background, probably trying to warn the idiot – Martin – off, but neither of them paid him any mind.

“Do you even know who you’re speaking to?” Arthur asked, taking a few steps forward, jiggling the coffee canister threateningly in one hand.

“I’m sure I’m about to find out,” Martin-the-Idiot said, his jaw set.

Arthur smirked.

********

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

Merlin huffed and shrank back slightly in his chair, tugging uncomfortably at the damp collar of his shirt. There were still coffee granules in his hair, he could feel them. He hadn’t had a chance to clean them all out before Gaius had appeared outside the HR department and dragged him back to the lab by the scruff of his neck.

“I didn’t know it was him. He looks very different in real life to his photos,” he said after a few moments. “And he was being an arse. An entitled, pedantic, elitist arse. Couldn’t help myself, Gaius.”

“You couldn’t help yourself? That’s what you’re going with, is it?” Gaius demanded, swelling like a bullfrog. “I tell you the most important part of your mission is to blend in, and the first thing you do on the job is pick a fight with Arthur Pendragon!”

“I really didn’t mean for it to get that out of hand!” Merlin said defensively. “I was just going to distract him long enough for that poor sod from maintenance to make a run for it, but then he went and tipped the coffee thing over my head-”

Merlin abruptly broke off. Gaius had raised the Eyebrow.

“Look, I’m not in any real trouble,” he said. “HR said I’ve been docked a day’s pay, but mostly they just thought it was funny. Plus they kept calling me Melvin, which was actually pretty insulting, but. What I’m trying to say is that I know it was stupid of me, but it won’t come back on you and the others, I promise.”

“It had better not, boy,” Gaius growled, pointing a threatening finger. “There’s too much riding on this mission for you and your impulsiveness to go cocking it up.”

“Sorry,” Merlin mumbled, looking down.

Gaius breathed out, deflating. “Alright,” he said. “As long as it doesn’t happen again.”

“It won’t. I promise.”

********

Famous last words, Merlin thought to himself a week later, sat on the floor of the IT office in front of Gwen’s chair while she picked the bits of bacon and egg out of his hair with a tissue.

“He really does have frighteningly good aim,” Merlin mumbled. “Waste of a perfectly good breakfast butty as well. Prat should be more grateful. Ow!” he added when Gwen cuffed him on the back of the head.

“Martin dear, as brave as I think you are standing up to a bully like Arthur, you’re really not in a position to complain right now,” she said as she continued extracting pieces of Arthur Pendragon’s breakfast from Merlin’s fringe. “You’re lucky they haven’t fired you.”

“But it wasn’t my fault this time!” Merlin protested. “I was just minding my own business and out of nowhere – ow, Jesus, fine, no need to pull my hair. I may have slightly called him a royal arse. But he definitely started it.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Gwen sighed, giving his head a comforting pat. “Just be more careful in future, alright?”

“I’ll be sure to duck faster next time,” Merlin mumbled, and was rewarded with a small laugh from Gwen.

“There, I think that’s the worst of it,” she said, wadding up the tissue and chucking it into the bin. “Go and face the music from Gaius, we’ll get a pint after work and you can bitch and moan to your heart’s content.”

“You’re my new favourite,” Merlin told her sincerely, hauling himself up off the floor and kissing her on the cheek.

“Go on,” Gwen chuckled, giving him a light shove and swinging her chair back around to face her computer.

Merlin grinned at her and left the IT office, pleased that they’d managed to maintain their friendship in spite of their respective facades as tiny cogs in the vast Camelot Technologies machine. He’d known Gwen ever since she joined the resistance around two years prior, and he still didn’t think he’d ever met such a genuinely nice person. Or such a fantastic liar, he thought as he recalled how she’d ‘introduced’ herself in the canteen after another skirmish with Arthur few days earlier, giving no indication that she already knew him while she helped him extract a piece of tomato from down the back of his shirt.

His good mood lasted all the way to Gaius’ lab, where he was faced with the Eyebrow for the fourth time in as many days.

“Office,” Gaius growled through gritted teeth, before spinning on his heel and stalking back through the lab with far too much vigour for a seventy year old man.

Merlin exchanged his smile for an appropriately abashed grimace and followed him in.

********

Sefa hesitated when she reached the sisters’ door, taking a few deep breaths to collect herself. She’d barely raised her hand to knock when the door swung open, revealing a very unimpressed-looking Morgause.

“I’m not impressed, Sefa,” she said. “It’s been almost a year.”

“Can you blame me?” Sefa asked.

Morgause sighed. “After what happened?” she said. “I suppose not. Come in.”

Sefa stepped over the threshold, feeling the wards wash over her, searching for magical bugs and offensive spells. She followed Morgause through to the living room, where Morgana was sat on the sofa, her hands clenched around a cup of tea, staring at nothing in particular. She wasn’t looking well, Sefa noted, paler than she’d ever been, with uncombed hair and bags under her eyes. She looked up when they came in, and gave a weak smile.

“Hello, Sefa,” she said. “Saw you coming. It’s been a while.”

“Sorry,” Sefa replied, sitting down on the sofa opposite. “I didn’t know if it was safe to come back. The incident, it scared a lot of people into hiding. Some even defected to Gaius’ side.”

Morgana looked miserable all of a sudden. “I know,” she said. “I tried to stop it, I really did. I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.”

“It wasn’t your fault, sister,” Morgause said firmly, taking the seat next to Morgana. “Everything would have been fine if Merlin had stayed out of our way. He’s the reason it got so messy.”

Morgana nodded, her face going stony. “Mordred insists he meant well, but he wasn’t there,” she said through gritted teeth. “He keeps going on about maintaining the truce while we focus on taking Uther down, he doesn’t see that Gaius’ lot are achieving absolutely fuck-all, the cowards. All this shit about the big picture, the prophecies. What would _Gaius_ know about prophecy?”

“Mordred’s just doing his job,” Sefa assured her. “He’s an envoy, he’s required to stay impartial regardless to his own opinions, you know he doesn’t really mean it.”

“I know,” Morgana huffed, looking down. “Doesn’t make it any easier to listen to.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Sefa said. “Have you heard their latest load of bullshit? They’ve got Merlin on the inside, trying to find a way into the labs.”

“Are they still prioritising that fucking dragon?” Morgause demanded.

“Him and Freya, the druid girl,” Sefa nodded. “Talk about hitting Camelot Tech where it hurts.”

Morgana snorted, shaking her head. “Idiots,” she muttered. “What does Gaius think he’s playing at? Does he really think that’ll amount to anything more than a slap on the wrist to Uther?”

“You’d have to ask him,” Sefa shrugged, slumping back against the sofa. “He’s not telling me shit these days. I think he’s going off the rails a little, he sent Merlin in without hardly consulting anyone else, as far as I can tell.”

“He’s getting old,” Morgause sighed. “Him and Iseldir, even Alice – surely they must realise by now? That it’s time for the next generation to take the reins?”

“I think the druids are starting to get a clue, at least,” Morgana said. “Mordred told me on his last visit, there’s whispers in their ranks of a schism. He’s not sure how many, but he’s guessing around half of them are growing disenchanted enough to split off.”

“Then we’ll have to make sure we’re there when they do,” Morgause said. “They have to either join us or drop out of the fight altogether. We can’t afford any more factions to be competing with, not with what’s up ahead. We’ve got bigger things in store.”

“What do you mean?” Sefa asked with a frown.

The sisters exchanged a glance. Morgause nodded, and Morgana smiled.

“Sefa,” she said, leaning forwards. “How much do you know about Nimueh?”

********

**June 1979**

Vivienne plastered a fake smile onto her face as she took her seat at the dining room table next to her husband.

“This is a lovely room, Igraine,” she said, her breeding taking over as she ran through the standard dinner party script in her head. “Did you redecorate while I was away? You have wonderful taste.”

“Thank you, Vivienne,” Igraine beamed, equally insincere, before turning to her husband at the head of the table. “Uther, dear, could you carve?”

“Of course, Igraine,” Uther said with that quiet smile he saved especially for his wife, standing up and taking the knife, weighing it carefully in his hand before he cut into the roast.

Vivienne turned away and took a sip of water. Under the table, Gorlois took her hand and gave it a quick squeeze. She sent him a small but genuine smile, brushing her thumb over his knuckles. She really had missed her husband, after ten months apart.

Uther made sure everyone had been served before he sat back down and raised his glass.

“A toast,” he said. The others immediately took up their own glasses. “To Vivienne’s safe return from Zambia, and to all the good work she did there. And to new business ventures,” he added with a nod to Gorlois, who grinned.

“To Camelot Technologies,” he replied. “May we be kept flush in good wine and roast beef for many years to come.”

“Hear hear,” Uther said, the rare hint of a laugh in his voice.

“The new company, it’s going well then?” Vivienne asked when they’d all drank, picking up her knife and fork.

“Very well,” Gorlois said happily. “Uther and I just hired our first consultants yesterday – Gaius Granby for engineering, Balinor Emrys for magic. Decent men.”

“Very decent,” Uther agreed with a nod. “Although I’m not sure I agree with the Emrys fellow’s ethics. Far too liberal for my taste.”

“Uther my friend, you speak as if ethics are a deciding factor,” Gorlois laughed around a mouthful of beef. “The man has influence with the dragons and a good head on his shoulders, that’s enough for me.”

“The dragons?” Igraine repeated warily. “Are you sure that’s wise, Uther? After what’s been happening, with all the recent trouble? I heard one of their hatchlings was stoned to death in Wales just last year after an incident on a sheep farm.”

“That had nothing to do with the dragons and everything to do with mob mentality,” Gorlois dismissed with a wave of his hand. “People fear what they don’t understand. But the more work we do with the dragons, the better we’ll understand them, and their magic. Imagine the security systems we could come up with!”

“I’m sure you’ll do a lot of good, my dear,” Vivienne told him.

Gorlois beamed at her and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Vivienne shut her eyes, trying to be happy to be back with him, in spite of the ache in her heart that had been present ever since she’d left her new baby girl behind in Ipswich. The father had agreed to keep quiet about the affair and had promised to take care of their daughter, but it had done little to reassure Vivienne. She swallowed heavily as she thought of her baby, who she’d never see again. She’d have to write to her, one day. She could only hope that Morgause would understand once she was grown.

********

**November 2008**

Things at Camelot Tech didn’t improve over the next few weeks. Merlin continued to bump into Arthur Pendragon in all manner of unlikely circumstances, manage to find some way of accidentally pissing him off, and without fail find himself covered in food and complaining about it to anyone who would listen. Today, it was Gwaine.

“I just don’t understand it,” he moaned into the polished wood of the bar, not sure if he was even being heard over the ambient noise of drinking, gambling and fighting that inevitably accompanied an evening at the Rising Sun pub. “The place is fucking huge, how am I running into this tosser every single day?”

“Get your head off my fucking bar, you’re getting salad dressing everywhere,” Gwaine replied, whacking him on the back of the neck with a dishcloth. Merlin sat up with a scowl, snatched a couple of napkins from the holder in front of him and started dabbing at his head. Gwaine sighed. “Look, have you stopped to consider that maybe it’s not an accident? I mean, you said yourself there isn’t hardly a single place in the complex that isn’t monitored around the clock. Maybe he’s suspicious of you so he’s seeking you out on purpose.”

“So, what, he’s combing through hours’ worth of CCTV footage every morning and finding the exact place Gaius has sent me running off to on errands that day just so he can come and throw food at me?” Merlin said sceptically, crumpling up the napkins. “He’s a dickhead, but he doesn’t care that much.”

“Fair point,” Gwaine conceded, slinging the dishcloth over his shoulder and leaning on the bar, looking around before lowering his voice. “Look, are you drinking tonight or did you just come in here to complain? Only, there’s a shipment coming through the back, if you give it a once-over and make sure nothing’s cursed there’s a free pint in it for you.”

“Who’re you moving it for?” Merlin asked warily. “If the Sidhe are involved you can take your fucking chances. I haven’t forgotten the incident with Sophia’s stupid self-filling shot glasses, I still can’t get the smell of that pond water she calls vodka out of my shoes.”

“It’s not the Sidhe,” Gwaine assured him. “It was brought in by one of Tauren’s men.”

Merlin froze. “Tauren?” he demanded. “Gwaine, _Tauren?_ You’re still doing business with him, after what he did to Gwen’s dad? What the fuck? Why would you-”

“Merlin,” Gwaine interrupted. “Look. You’re my mate and all, but you know me. I’ve never taken sides in this clusterfuck, and I don’t plan on starting now.”

“Yeah, but this is Gwen we’re talking about – for fuck’s sake, you _like_ Gwen-”

“I know,” Gwaine said. “I like her fine, she’s a right nice lass, and I’m sorry for what happened to Tom, but you know what else I like? Tauren’s money. I’m well aware that the man himself is a piece of shit, but he pays well to keep the pub as a flow-through point on his route. These smugglers, they’re the only thing keeping this place from going under at the moment.”

“Fucking hell,” Merlin groaned, passing a hand over his face. “Satan’s fucking ballsack. Can’t anything just be fucking simple for once?”

“Language,” Gwaine chided mildly, ignoring the two finger salute he got in return.

“Just give me a sodding drink, I’ll pay for it, I’m not looking through Tauren’s shit for you,” Merlin said, starting to root through his pockets for change.

“Fair enough,” Gwaine sighed, stepping back and reaching under the bar for a pint glass. “Usual?”

“Yeah.”

Gwaine set a pint of Guinness down on the bar and wandered off to deal with a couple of hedgewitches who’d just come in. By the time he circled back around, Merlin had downed most of it and was staring into the foamy dregs with a morose expression.

“Another?”

“No thanks. Can’t show up tomorrow with a hangover, I have to go with Gaius to this R&D presentation, all the top brass, plus reps from Mora Incorporated. Apparently the lady herself’ll be there.”

“Sounds horrifying.”

“Oh, it will be,” Merlin said, knocking back the last of his drink and getting up from the bar. “See you, Gwaine.”

“Night, Merlin.”

********

Arthur adjusted his tie and did his best to look composed as he entered the conference room at Uther’s flank. He stood back and kept quiet as Uther greeted Helen from Mora Incorporated with an uncharacteristically warm smile, and took his seat when he was told.

The tables in the room were set out in a horseshoe shape, with Uther in the dead centre of the end table, with Arthur to his left and Agravaine, the head of R&D, at his right. A projector and screen had been set up at the other end of the room, directly in front of them. The rest of the people attending the presentation had been left to scramble for seats, or else struggle to see over each other’s heads at the edges of the room. Arthur caught a glimpse of a plaid shirt in the corner of his eye that indicated that the universe had once again decided to beset him with the presence of Martin-the-Idiot, and groaned internally. He didn’t even have any food to throw at him today.

His brooding was interrupted by Helen strolling to the front of the room and standing next to the screen, clapping her hands like a teacher.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” she called as the rumble of conversation died down and heads turned towards the front. She was surveying her audience with a strange expression on her face, but when she caught Arthur’s eye she smirked. “If you’ll just give my colleagues a few more moments, they should have the presentation ready.”

“Whenever you’re ready, Helen,” Uther said, still acting unusually amicable.

Helen gave one last rather alarming smile before she moved back over to where a few of her employees were clustered around a laptop. They were looking a little odd themselves, Arthur noticed with a frown. Their robotic movements and blank expressions reminded him forcefully of a group of marionettes. He shivered and turned away, but not before he saw Helen lean down to whisper in the ear of one of the men, who stiffened noticeably, although he didn’t stop what he was doing for a second.

“Father-” he started, intending to voice his concerns that something was off. Before he could, however, Helen returned to the front of the room. This time, the chatter died down immediately.

“Apologies for the wait,” she said. “Now, if you’d like to direct your attention to the screen…”

The audience did as they were bid, and the rest of the world seemed to fall away.

Arthur wasn’t sure what was so captivating about the images on the screen, or the music that was suddenly filling his head and making it very difficult to hear anything else, but whatever it was, he found it soothing. Very soothing, he mentally corrected himself, blinking contentedly as the welcoming thought of a nap tugged at the edges of his consciousness. On some level, he knew he was still in a room full of people and it probably wasn’t ideal for him to start snoring, but he found he couldn’t help himself. Waves of music washed over him, and his eyelids grew heavier and heavier.

 _Just a little sleep,_ he thought to himself, slumping down in his chair. _No one will notice…_

He was vaguely aware of someone coming towards him from up ahead –

Something sharp-looking and shiny spinning through the air –

A flash of plaid –

The next thing Arthur knew, he was wide awake and on the floor with someone’s knee digging into his back, staring at the knife buried up to the hilt in the back of his chair, exactly where his heart had been less than a second before.

“What the fuck,” he tried to say, frowning when his voice came out much hoarser than it usually was. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What the fuck,” he said, sitting up.

He could hear shouting and struggling that indicated security guards were converging on someone in the middle of the room, but he found he couldn’t quite look away from his almost-murder weapon just yet.

Uther was on his feet, looking from the knife to Arthur and back again with wide eyes.

“You – I – Arthur, my god,” he managed, shaking himself into action and striding over, grabbing his son’s arm and helping him to his feet. “Are you alright?”

“Fine, father,” Arthur said, forcing himself to stop shaking. “I’m fine.”

“You saved my boy’s life,” Uther said.

Arthur frowned again, finding this a strange thing to say, until he realised Uther wasn’t talking to him, but someone behind him. He turned around and almost swore again when he realised who it was.

Martin-the-Idiot was hauling himself up off the floor, rubbing his elbow and blinking confusedly, as if he wasn’t sure what had just happened.

 _That makes two of us_ , Arthur thought.

********

“Sorry, you’re going to have to run that by me again,” Gwen said, blinking bemusedly over her pint. “It almost sounded like you said Uther had made you Arthur’s PA as a reward for saving his life.”

“That’s exactly what I said,” Merlin grimaced, draining his own glass and knocking on the bar for Gwaine to bring him another one.

“So it’s true then?” Gwaine grinned, setting another Guinness in front of him and leaning forwards on the bar. “Just heard from Percy over there, he was fixing a leaky ceiling in the next building over, said he heard the music and the yelling. Everyone’s talking about it mate – plucky little intern drags the prince of the palace out of the path of a flying spear. Stuff of legends, that is.”

“Or tabloid headlines, as the case may be,” Gwen added.

“It wasn’t a spear, it was a knife,” Merlin mumbled, downing half his drink in one go. He looked up to see both Gwen and Gwaine looking at him with identical raised eyebrows. He sighed. “I don’t even know how it happened,” he said. “One minute, I look up from playing snake on my phone and everyone’s falling asleep while Helen from Mora Inc. is playing this godawful music, sounds kind of like those bollocks-y sounding whale CDs my old neighbour liked – big on the mindfulness, was Mary. The next minute, the old bat’s transformed into an even older bat and is hurling a knife straight at the git’s chest – I just kind of, I don’t know, reacted.”

“Reacted,” Gwaine repeated flatly. “Reacted, he says.”

Merlin frowned. “What?”

“Nothing, pet,” Gwen said, patting his hand. “Don’t worry your poor heroic head about it.”

“Heroic?” Merlin scoffed. “Seriously? You have met me, right?”

“Good lord, he’s making it worse,” Gwaine commented dryly. “But no matter. I’d rather talk about how mental Uther’s clearly gone, giving a high-ranking job the first random who drags his arsehole of a son out of the path of a spear-”

“Wasn’t a spear-”

“I mean, did he even ask to see a CV?” Gwaine continued, ignoring Merlin completely. “After all this about higher security and not letting people in who don’t pass eight kinds of personality tests?”

“I… no, he didn’t,” Merlin said, furrowing his brow. “He just kind of gave me the job. Everyone was clapping. To be honest, it was probably just for publicity, human interest or whatever. I’ll likely be out on my arse tomorrow, or back in Gaius’ labs.”

His phone beeped with a text. Ignoring Gwen and Gwaine’s half-amused, half-apprehensive looks, he rooted through his bag for his faulty old Nokia, frowned at the unknown number on the screen, but hit ‘read’ anyway.

_It has been made clear to me that you were not hired as my personal assistant by my father as a publicity stunt, in spite of what I had hoped. I will expect you in the office at 7am tomorrow. Don’t be late – AP._

"Well shit,” Merlin mumbled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if I'm doing a Merlin/Arthur romance yet. Guess we'll see how that goes.


End file.
